The Conjuring House, Burrillville: The Real Perron Farmhouse, Its Ghosts and Its Future

The farmhouse at 1677 Round Top Road, in the Harrisville part of Burrillville in northwest Rhode Island, is one of the most famous haunted houses in the world. Long known locally as the Old Arnold Estate, it is the home where Roger and Carolyn Perron raised their five daughters through the 1970s, and their accounts of what happened there became the basis of the 2013 Warner Bros. film The Conjuring.

For a few years it was also a place you could visit, with tours, overnight stays and investigations. That ended in late 2024, and as of 2026 the house is closed and its future is uncertain. This guide sets out the real history, what the Perrons and the Warrens said, what the records actually show, and where things stand now.

History of the Conjuring House

The house is a pre-Revolutionary colonial farmhouse, dated to around 1736, set on about eight and a half acres of fields and woods off Round Top Road. For generations it belonged to members of the Arnold family, which is why it is still often called the Old Arnold Estate. A local tradition, sometimes called the Black Book of Burrillville, lists a grim run of deaths connected with the farm over the years, including suicides, drownings and men who froze to death, but researchers have found it hard to verify most of that list from records.

Roger and Carolyn Perron moved in with their five daughters, Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy and April, in the winter of 1970 to 1971. Over the next decade the family described a long series of experiences, from apparitions and unexplained sounds to a sense of being watched. In 1973 they were visited by Ed and Lorraine Warren, the Connecticut couple who became America’s best-known demonologists. The Perrons left in 1980.

Andrea Perron later wrote a three-volume account, House of Darkness, House of Light, starting in 2011. Two years later The Conjuring, loosely based on the Warrens’ version of events, became a box office hit and turned the farmhouse into a destination. The long-time owner at that point, Norma Sutcliffe, did not run it as an attraction.

In 2019 Cory and Jennifer Heinzen, paranormal enthusiasts from Maine, bought the house for just under $440,000 and opened it to the public with tours, events and overnight stays. They put it on the market in 2021 for $1.2 million, saying they wanted a buyer who would keep the business going, and in 2022 Boston real estate developer Jacqueline Nunez agreed to pay about $1.5 million, well above the asking price.

The next years were turbulent. In 2024 the Heinzens and several staff publicly cut ties with the business, the Burrillville Town Council declined to renew the entertainment license, citing problems with neighbors, former employees and police, and the house closed to visitors at the end of that year. In 2025 the owner defaulted on her loan and Needham Bank scheduled a foreclosure auction at the property for Halloween morning. Andrea Perron asked Rhode Island ghost hunter Jason Hawes to help save the farm, and he launched a fundraiser to bid. On October 8, 2025, the auction was canceled after the bank sold the loan; land records in November showed the buyer of the loan was a company formed by YouTuber Elton Castee. The deed itself stayed with the owner, and the house’s future was still being argued over in 2026.

The ghosts of the Conjuring House

The woman the Warrens called Bathsheba

The most famous presence in the story is a hostile woman Carolyn Perron said she saw standing over her bed, her head tilted at an odd angle. The Warrens identified her as Bathsheba Sherman, a woman who had lived in the area in the 1800s, and claimed she had been a Satanist who killed a baby and cursed the land before hanging herself.

Records tell a different story. Bathsheba Thayer Sherman was a real farm wife who married Judson Sherman and had a son, Herbert, and she died in 1885 at the age of 73, reportedly of paralysis after a stroke, not by hanging. Researchers have found no evidence she was ever accused of witchcraft or of harming a child, and some argue she never lived in this farmhouse at all. She is buried in a local cemetery, and her name has carried an ugly legend she did nothing to earn.

The Perron family's experiences

Andrea Perron and her sisters have described a house with several presences, some frightening and some gentle, over the nine years they lived there. In her books she writes of spirits that seemed to watch over the children as well as ones that terrified her mother. These are the family’s own accounts, they cannot be proven or disproven, and they remain the heart of the story. The film compressed and dramatized them heavily.

Visitors and investigators

During the years the house was open, guests on overnight stays and well-known paranormal investigators, including the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures crew, reported voices, knocks and odd readings. The Heinzens said they experienced activity themselves. A later dispute between former staff and the owner included accusations about how investigations were run, which is a reminder that a famous house attracts showmanship as well as sincere experiences.

The Arnold family legends

Older ghost lore links the farm’s troubles to the Arnold family deaths in the Black Book of Burrillville list, including a woman said to have hanged herself in the barn. Like the Bathsheba story, most of these tales are hard to match to documents, and they are best treated as local legend.

Where to look

• The barn: where legend places an Arnold family suicide, and where many visitors felt most uneasy.
• The cellar: the setting of some of the film’s most frightening scenes, and of many reports during public investigations.
• The parents' bedroom: where Carolyn Perron said the figure stood over her bed.
• The grounds and woods: where the family described presences outdoors as well as in.

Can you visit the Conjuring House?

Not at present. The house has been closed to the public since late 2024, when the town did not renew its entertainment license, and in 2026 ownership was still tied up between the deed holder and the buyer of the loan. There are no tours, overnight stays or investigations running, and there is nothing to see from the road that is worth disturbing the neighbors for.

Several people have said they would reopen it if they gained control, including Jason Hawes, who has said he would repair the house and open it enough to cover its costs. If it does reopen, expect tickets to be sold well ahead and check local news, such as NRI NOW and the Providence Journal, before you plan a trip.

If you want a haunted night in Rhode Island in the meantime, the General Stanton Inn in Charlestown is a colonial inn with a ghost story of its own, and Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts and overnight VIP nights there.

• Visiting Private property, closed to the public since late 2024
• Ghost hunting Not open for tours, stays or investigations at present

Tips for your visit

• Do not trespass: Round Top Road is residential and the house is private property.
• Read Andrea Perron’s books for the family’s own account, and compare it with what records say about Bathsheba Sherman.
• Watch local news for any reopening; tickets were in heavy demand when the house was last open.
• For a haunted night out now, try a ghost hunt at the General Stanton Inn in Charlestown.

More haunted places nearby

• Mercy Brown's grave, Exeter: Rhode Island’s 1892 vampire exhumation
• Cumberland Monastery and Nine Men's Misery: the woods and memorial of 1676, about 20 miles east
• The haunting in Connecticut house: another Warren case, across the state line
• Haunted places in Rhode Island

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• NBC 10 via KUTV: Another chapter being written about the Conjuring House (2021)
• NRI NOW: Resignations and changes at The Conjuring House (July 2024)
• Providence Journal via Yahoo: She grew up in the Conjuring House (October 2025)
• Brown Daily Herald: Conjuring House mortgage sold (October 2025)
• Antique Trader: Conjuring House auction canceled (October 2025)
• Weird Darkness: The real owner of the Conjuring House (November 2025)
• American Ghost Walks: The Conjuring House, is the haunting real?
• Jason Hawes: The Conjuring House trademark battle (June 2026)